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How to Build a Double End Bag

How to Build a Double End Bag

Posted by Admin

In a boxer’s training arsenal there are few pieces of equipment that will hit back. The double end bag is the best you can get without a sparring partner until I figure out a way to create a fighting robot that learns from past encounters.

You can go out and buy a double end bag. but one of the things I love about boxing is that the equipment is simple enough to improvise if you don’t have the cash or the desire to go to the store.

Nothing more than a ball or punching surface suspended about head height by some type of elastic material so it rebounds when you hit it.

You will need:

Two-three bungee cords

1 x ball of some sort (I used a foam Nerf one I stole from my kids)

Duct Tape

2 x strips of material (rags)

Some heavy duty string

1 x ice cream pail

Rocks and sand.

Time Required. Approx 1/2 hour and then days and months and years of practising.

Total Cost. Less than $10 — You can probably find all of this stuff around your house in which case nothing.

1. Building the Base

The double end bag is suspended in mid air by the two bungee cords. One goes up and is attached to the ceiling. The other goes down and is attached to the floor. If you’re like me, your floor is either made of concrete or some material that would require mounting a bracket and the like to give the bungee something to attach to.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not that handy, so drilling things in my floor just wasn’t an option. Basically you need to create a base that is heavy enough to hold the bag in place when you hit it. I actually found that allowing the base to move slightly created differing bounces on the rebound depending on how I hit it, so I would suggest not trying to anchor it firmly in one place, but let the base be light enough to move around somewhat — not a lot, but a little.

My base is made out of an ice cream pail filled with rocks and sand. It weighs about 15-20lbs. The lid is duct taped on and I’ve put a loop of heavy duty para cord (any cord is fine) from one corner to the other to create a loop I can attach the bungee to. This has worked perfectly for about a month now with no need to fix it.

2. Building Your Punching Bag

For this I took a foam Nerf Ball that is approximately the size of a 16oz boxing glove — slightly bigger — to simulate a punch coming at me. It gives me a nice sized target to hit as it’s moving all over the place. You’re going to love doing combinations on this thing. excellent for getting your timing more realistic as opposed to a heavy bag.

Anyways, take the ball and wrap some cord around it, tying it tight. It has to be tight as when the bungees pull on it it will deform your ball somewhat but that makes it all the more unpredictable. Once the cord is tied around it, wrap duct tape over the cord to keep it in place. Leave a little opening on either side of the ball to hook the bungee cord onto.

I’ve been hitting the ball you see here for a month now and it has not had to be readjusted, retaped, fixed or anything. It just takes the punishment and keeps on going.

3. Hooking up the Bungees

There are two parts to this. First you have to hook the bungees to the ball. Simply take the hooks and hook them on the cord where you left spaces in the duct tape on either side of the ball. Now that is going to leave you with two nice steel hooks at about eye level when all is said and done, so you HAVE to wrap the hooks in material and then duct tape the material in place. See the pic on the right to see what I mean.

That will protect you from catching a hook up side the head. Alternatively you can tie bungee directly to the string, cutting off the hooks, but this was easier and works well.

The second part of this is hooking the bungee up to the base and ceiling. See the pic above for the base, simply hook the bungee hooks into the loop you attached to the base.

The other bungee gets hooked to the ceiling. I have rafters in my basement so simply nailing in a nail and then wrapping the bungee around it/tie it in place and I was good to go. You may have to figure something else out depending on what your ceiling is made of.

The fun part is adjusting the ball so it is approximately at shoulder height and has a good spring back when you hit it. If the bungees are too loose, the ball will travel really slow which is not very realistic. All you have to do is tighten the bungees on both ends (otherwise the ball will move up or down). Do this by shortening the bungee by putting another wrap around the loop in the base or around the nail at the roof. It’s going to take some fiddling with.

Once that is done, you’re done. You now have a double end bag that you can beat to your heart’s content. Now if only you had a double end bag workout or routine to use.

If you’re having problems figuring this out, then maybe you should just buy one .